Who We Are

Our History: No Child Left Behind

After 5 years of volunteer experience in Malawi’s schools and hospitals, Patience and Joseph realized children with special needs learned better when their visual, auditory and tactile senses were stimulated, and that hospitalizations disrupted the normal child life that usually involved playing with friends and attending school.

These were were services that lacked in Malawian schools and hospitals. In June 2015, they founded Fount for Nations to fill this gap. Starting with one Activity Center at Kamuzu Central Hospital, in Lilongwe, the organization now operates 8 centers that provide learning support to a previously ignored group of children.


Our Present: Education for All

Fount for Nations is a registered Malawian NGO. Fount for Nations contributes to the provision of education for all by meeting the learning needs of primary special needs children, and children that miss school due to hospitalization. We achieve this through our Special Education Program and Hospital Schools.

We improve the learning outcomes of these children by using creative arts elements and child-focused approaches thereby making learning fun, specialized and individualized. These approaches make our children interested in learning, encourage parent participation, and motivate teachers resulting in the children progressing and becoming successful in and out of school.


Our Future: Growth and Self Sustainance

We want to see that no child is left behind in Malawi’s education system. We are working towards developing and expanding our creative learning and volunteer models to integrate them in the national curriculum for special needs education. We are also working toward growing our hospital schools into Child Life programs and accredit the learning that takes place in the hospital. We are continuing our advocacy efforts by facilitating community engagement in the child’s learning process.




What We Do

“Personalising education and health so that everyone can learn and live better”.

Special Education (SeED Project)

For years’ children with intellectual disability have been considered dull and/or retarded. Through the SeED Project, we are changing that misconception by firstly changing the way we refer to these children as “differently-abled” instead of “disabled”, and secondly by providing specialized and individualised creative education to these children. The aim of the creative art learning support is to identify and develop a child’s skills and compensatory talents, and use such skills as means of learning.

Since October of 2015, Fount for Nations has been running creative art sessions in government primary school resource centers. The creative art sessions have proven to not only provide fun learning but also help the learners retain information better. More on SeED Program

Hospital Education and Art Program (H.E.Art)

Fount for Nations has been running hospital school programs since September 2016. The School provides familiar activities like creative arts, academic lessons and organized play in an environment that is often unfamiliar for sick children. This gives children and their guardian’s opportunities to be creative and productive, while maintaining a sense of identity and hope.

Special attention is given to those patients whose hospital stay will exceed 10 days, who have special educational needs, who have chronic illnesses and visit the hospital frequently, or who have missed school prior to hospitalization. Educational sessions are provided in a group setting or at bedside, as medically appropriate. More on H.E.Art Program

Our Team

Patience Musiwa-Mkandawire

Executive Director

A true change maker Patience started working with communities for impact since she was 15. She has volunteer experience as a tutor, mentor, educator, and community mobilizer. As the organizations executive director, Patience oversees the organizations operational, programmatic and financial activities. She is passionate about education particularly for differently abled children. She believes that everyone is special! Everyone has something to offer the world. Patience draws her inspiration from all the children that discover for themselves and show others how amazing they are.

Joseph JoeWire Mkandawire

Head of Programs

Joseph believes that “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. With his mum as a seasoned teacher, Joseph grew up wanting to become a teacher, simplifying concepts for children. Of course, he became a doctor instead, but that passion to help children who weren’t as privileged as he was remained. His medical background and MBA make him the perfect Head of Programs for fount for nations. He is mainly responsible for planning and governance and for overseeing the successful delivery of our programs. Joseph prides himself in being a health advocate, an educator and a visionary.

Chikumbutso Baluwa

Program Coordinator-Blantyre

Chikumbutso loves serving and believes that helping people, especially children is her calling form God. Chiku’s Father once said "when you impart knowledge to a child now, you have imparted knowledge for future generations." Seeing a child happy, enjoying and benefiting from learning just gives Chiku joy knowing she is living her father’s words. Chikumbutso works as program coordinator for Blantyre. She's responsible for planning, coordinating, and implementing our school and hospital programs in Blantyre.

Esther Nyirenda

M & E Officer

Esther is a naturally empathetic person. She draws her inspiration from community led solutions that nurture and support the most vulnerable. Esther is a health practitioner passionate about social impact. As the measuring and evaluation officer she is responsible for designing, developing and managing the organization’s monitoring and evaluation system. She also runs training sessions for the rest of the team to ensure we are all impact focused.

Nohara S. Chinguwo

Education Coordinator

As a humanitarian with experience in volunteer work, refugee work and teaching, Nohara is passionate about making the world a better place for all. A staunch Special Needs Education advocate, he actively supports the implementation of inclusive education in the country in the quest to see the global agenda for education for all achieved in Malawi. As the Education Coordinator, he is primarily responsible for designing and developing our Creative Learning model. He also leads the H.E.Art program in the hospitals which has him actively taking part in ensuring that all children are able to access quality education.

Pamela Guga

Accounts Officer

Pamela enjoys nothing better than working in a vibrant team. As the accounts officer her priority is to safeguard the organizations assets. She is responsible for making sure the organization is efficient and effective in managing our resources for impact. Not all heroes are in the field and while Pamela loves children she knows that her contribution is building a sound financial management system that ensures that we continue supporting children’s education across Malawi.


3 years of operation,
3 regions


8 centers,
footprint in 40 villages

31480
people reached

Sign up to volunteer

Our work of providing personalized education would not be achieved without our team of dedicated and passionate volunteers. Join our growing team of wonderful volunteers by signing up for either the SeED or HEArt programs.